MLB on FOX reporter, baseball writer, and MLB Network insider Ken Rosenthal has used a photo of himself with the Phillie Phanatic as his Twitter avatar for more than a year, and it just rubbed some Nats fans the wrong way.

JackoBeam called on fellow Nats fan Allan Petersen (Twitter @ambp77) to come up with an alternative. Petersen, who maintains a Tumbler feed devoted to Photoshopped images of the Washington Nationals, went to work, inserting both Rosenthal and new racing president William Howard Taft into a finish line photo, embellished with Rosenthal’s trademark bow ties.

Rosenthal approved.

“#Nationals fans were tired of my old Avatar showing me and the #Phillies Phanatic,” Rosenthal Tweeted. “I challenged them to come up with a new one. They did!”

All in good fun, right?

What followed was almost instant assault by Phillies fans (most of whom apparently did not watch the NL Playoffs). Here’s just a sampling of responses in the first hour, and they just keep coming…

@MannicM @Ken_Rosenthal congratulations on losing the respect of millions of phillies fans and gaining that of the 10 nats fans :-P

Umm, wait a minute, it was Washington fans who got upset about Rosenthal’s avatar in the first place, they pressure him to change, he does, and now Phillies fans are the soreheads because they don’t like it? Yeah, that’s fair. Yeah, it’s okay for one group of fans to be upset but not the other.

Fact: Phillies Nation will be stronger in the midst of a 10-year non-playoff run than Natitude ever has been or will be. Enjoy your 15 minutes – we’re the real deal and you’re just trying to be. Philadelphia is 10,000 times the sports town DC is and that’s never going to change.

Sure. The full story isn’t very interesting or provocative. Somebody created a fake Ken Rosenthal Twitter account. Fake Rosenthal said he would change his avatar if @JackoBeam and @ambp77 created a new one with the racing bow-tied presidents.

This is the interaction that followed:

@JackoBeam: @Ken_Rosenthal fake Rosenthal just agreed to change his avatar to Ken w/ Racing Presidents wearing bowties if we made him one. Does real KR?

@Ken_Rosenthal: @JackoBeam Try me.

@JackoBeam @ambp77 if you make it, the real KR will use it. #believe

That’s pretty much it.

To @polittr:

Who said anybody was annoyed? Amused more like it.

To @joseph:

As shown above, nobody got upset about Rosenthal’s old avatar. I don’t recall anybody attacking the Phillies or their fans (at least not as it relates to Rosenthal’s avatar). Nope. We all just find it amusing how defensive the great Philly fan base is. As a blogger, it’s awesome.

OK Phillies fans, I had to look this up. Let’s talk about front running. Yes, you won a World Series and sold out the new ball park for the past five seasons, but going back through your supposedly storied fan history, in the 100 YEARS before CPB opened, there were exactly 7 seasons where you averaged even 50% of capacity. Seven. Four of those were around the playoff years of ’77-’80. One was the year of the ’93 champions. Even going back to tiny Shibe Park and the even smaller Baker Bowl, the Phillies rarely drew more than 20 to 30% capacity for the season.

The Nationals have never averaged less than 54% capacity, even in cavernous RFK Stadium, even during back-to-back 100-loss seasons. Obviously a perennial contender should be drawing closer to 100% capacity, and the Nats will now.

Am I declaring DC a baseball town? Of course not. Nobody here under the age of 40 grew up with baseball; but there are a TON more loyal Nats fans than you seem to think, and the winning tradition is just beginning. Don’t like Rizzo’s arrogance? Think we overpaid for Werth? Whine all you want, but Jayson’s is looking pretty smart right now, and the richest owner in baseball isn’t complaining. Ask any major league free agent where he’d like to be playing if he got a chance. One team’s on everybody’s list, and it ain’t yours.

Here’s the way I see it – I have no idea why Rosenthal decided to appease the Nationals fans. It was kind of dumb, but really not that big of a deal. But Phillies fans are the worst, so they completely overreacted to it.

However, the Nationals fans coming in here talking about how great their fans are – no, they’re not. I go to school in DC and I see the frontrunning first-hand. My friend became a “die-hard” Nats fan this year, and was calling or texting me a bunch to ask me about the finer rules of the game of baseball. And there are plenty more of his kind. Look around their new stadium and most of the shirts and jerseys you see feature the new logo from this year, rather than the older one from their first few years in DC, suggesting that the shirts were just purchased. So that’s the way I see it.

@Ken_Rosenthal let me guess, if the cellar dwellers Astros request a change, your game? You did have style and a sense of baseball, now that is in question. Nats fans are frauds. Phils fans are loyal, passionate and have knowledge of the game. There aren’t many cities like ours. You just got taken by DC politicians!